62: A Model Kit by Julio Cortázar

First published in English in 1972 and long out of print, 62: A Model Kit is Julio Cortázar’s brilliant, intricate blueprint for life in the so-called "City." As one of the main characters, the intellectual Juan, puts it: to one person the City might appear as Paris, to another it might be where one goes upon getting out of bed in Barcelona; to another it might appear as a beer hall in Oslo. This cityscape, as Carlos Fuentes describes it, "seems drawn up by the Marx Brothers with an assist from Bela Lugosi!" It is the setting where the usual restraints of traditional novelistic order are discarded and the reader is taken on a daring and exciting new experience of life itself, The New York Times described 62: A Model Kit as "deeply touching, enjoyable, beautifully written and fascinatingly mysterious." Library Journal said 62: A Model Kit is "a highly satisfying work by one of the most extraordinary writers of our time."